Question

Q: Critique the following research done in a service industry as to the extent to which it meets the hallmarks of scientific investigation discussed in this chapter.

The Mobile Phone Company the Mobile Phone Company has been named as the most complained‐about mobile phone company, narrowly beating 3G, which has shot to the top of the table as the worst landline provider.

According to the latest figures from the regulator, Offcomer, the Mobile Phone Company was the most complained‐about mobile provider – with 0.15 complaints per 1,000 – in the last three months of 2014. It saw its complaint figures rise substantially in the last quarter of 2014. The company wanted to pinpoint the specific problems and take corrective action. Researchers were called in, and they spoke to a number of customers, noting the nature of the specific problems they faced. Because the problem had to be attended to very quickly, they developed a theoretical base, collected relevant detailed information from a sample of 100 customers, and analyzed the data. The results promise to be fairly accurate with at least an 85% chance of success in problem solving. The researchers will make recommendations to the company based on the results of data analysis.

Answer 1

The Mobile Phone Company

The Mobile Phone Company has been named as the most complained about mobile phone company, narrowly beating 3G, which has shot to the top of the table as the worst landline provider.

According to the latest figures from the regulator, Ofcom, the Mobile Phone Company was the most complained-about mobile provider – with 0.15 complaints per 1,000 – in the last three months of 2014. It saw its complaint figures rise substantially in the last quarter of 2014.

The company wanted to pinpoint the specific problems and take corrective action. Researchers were called in, and they spoke to a number of customers, noting the nature of the specific problems they faced. Because the problem had to be attended to very quickly, they developed a theoretical base, collected relevant detailed information from a sample of 100 customers, and analyzed the data. The results promise to be fairly accurate with at least an 85% chance of success in problem solving. The researchers will make recommendations to the company based on the results of data analysis.

The hallmarks of science are purposiveness, rigor, testability, replicability, precision and confidence, objectivity, generalizability, and parsimony. This study meets the basic criterion of purposiveness. It cannot be called a rigorous study inasmuch as a theoretical framework seems to have been formulated merely on the basis of conversation with a number of customers and no scientific data seem to have been collected thereafter. For this reason, the replicability and generalizability criteria also suffer. With customer complaints mounting, an 85% confidence level may not suffice. Unless we know the theoretical base, we cannot be sure that the criterion of parsimony is met. All in all, this is a good example of a non-scientific investigation.